Conventional helicopters include elaborate and heavy engine and transmission systems to provide power to drive a rotor and anti-torque system and to transmit torque from an output shaft of the engine to main and tail rotor assemblies. Unfortunately, both the engine and transmission are heavy, bulky and inefficient due to frictional losses. The engine and transmission are also expensive and difficult to maintain.
Another shortcoming of conventional helicopters is instability. A tail rotor assembly or other comparable anti-torque system is required to stabilize the helicopter.
Another shortcoming of conventional helicopters is excessive drag. The conventional design of a bulbous fuselage below a rotor is far from sleek.
What is needed is an efficient helicopter that avoids conventional engines, transmissions and tail rotor assemblies, while providing a reduced drag configuration that achieves equivalent or superior performance to a conventional helicopter.
The invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems and solving one or more of the needs as set forth above.